To be a burden is to be truly human

One of the things that's been on my mind more often lately is that when I'm old and grey, I really hope that I'll be humble and secure enough to accept assistance from others -- an arm to lean on as I step down a curb, hands to help me up from a chair, or even offers to change the light bulb of a ceiling fan when my joints are too unreliable to make the step-up-step-down routine. Being around the elderly helps provide me with foresight to consider such things these days.

That being said, here are excerpts from a London Times commentary that touches on the "I'll die when I want to" credo that some people seem to be developing:

I DISLIKE THE description “deeply offensive”: in a free society, open debate is bound to “deeply offend” someone, but we must still affirm our commitment to such open discourse. Yet the nationwide adverts for Jenni Murray’s recent TV polemic on assisted suicide came pretty near to the deplorable, if not the offensive. “I’ll die when I want to,” the words proclaimed, in giant letters.

A lacerating insult, in my view, to those who have lost family members or close friends through the grief of suicide. And a dreadful signal to the young, who we know are the most responsive to suggestions of suicide — the suicide rate among young men in Britain and Ireland has risen almost fivefold over the past two decades. God forfend that that catchphrase “I’ll die when I want to” should enter into the common language and aspirations of the culture.

But Murray’s “suicide pact” with two other friends — they pledge to assist each other to die if the circumstances arise — also involves another agenda. It is the mentality of a feminist generation who, “having fought so hard to become liberated and independent . . . are now being trapped into caring for dependent parents”, we are told. I’ll-die-when-I-want-to isn’t just about being spared terminal pain. It is also about being independent, “autonomous”, “liberated”, free from ever being a “burden” on anyone else: it is about being in control of one’s destiny at all times and in all ways.

Dear me. How pitiful to have lived for over half a century on this planet and not to have observed that the very core of being human is admitting of dependence upon others. There is such a thing as society, and we are all part of it. Our interdependence is part of our humanity, and indeed, our civilisation. Only an automaton is autonomous. We are all burdens upon each other at various cycles of our lives; but we grow in bearing one another’s burdens and draw enlightenment and wisdom from the experience.

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By Mary Kenny